NL Bots on Full Tilt

[Kevroc]

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Probing the computer in any way (including screen reading) is no help if you run your poker client in a VM (which there are plenty of legitimate reasons to do, such as not using windows as your primary operating system) and the bot outside.


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Thank you for the feedback.

I honestly do not know what that means above but, there shouldn't be a way to use the client without FTP able to monitor it IMO.

That seems pretty basic common sense to me, no?

I know FTP leaves security up to the player for the most part but, the level-playing field should be watched by them again IMO.

[notreallymyname]

A VM is a fake computer provided by a program running on a real computer (or another VM, but that's just silly). FTP only has access to the fake computer, but programs on the real computer have access to both.

[KurtSF]

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A VM is a fake computer provided by a program running on a real computer (or another VM, but that's just silly). FTP only has access to the fake computer, but programs on the real computer have access to both.

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Alternatively botters will put the bot on a second real computer next to the one with the poker client, and have it control the first computer. Reading the running processes and the screen is better than not doing anything, but it is not even close to 100% effective in sniffing bots.

[rakemeplz]

'Seriously man. Break your database down per month and compare from month to month and tell us if all your stats are exactly identical like the bots.'

Ummm, duh? They use a formula/style that is very consistant with bot like play...hence they would seem like bots not average player. This is so patently obvious.

As to the person accusing them of team play...ummm, duh? Even if they do not play as a team, they have a system developed as a team, and use it most of the time, I mean they rarely deviate from their strategy so if they occasionally discuss hands so I dont think you can accuse them of "team play". This would also be very difficult/impossible to improve so this accusation is irrelevant/silly.

[Clute]

Convinced me I'm emailing FTP right now. Thanks for the in-depth expose'

[Hellmouth]

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donktastic,

the fact that you think i should be removed as mod just because i'm defending chuck's actions (which are within the t&c) is so LOL.

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Nation

You have made many posts in this forum and I have read them all. Read mine if you like. You can defend your friend all you like and for that your position as a mod should not be questioned.
I do question your unprofessionalism in your posts. All your lol's sarcasm etc ... should be avoided in a thread such as this. Many of your posts were childish and rude to other members. As a mod you should have a higher standard. I think your reaction to many of the comments only serve to reduce the credibility of twoplustwo and other mods. If I was mangement I would require that improve your behaviour on this site.

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come on man. I've had mods treat me way worse than this. There is no higher standard. (Yesterday in the AI forum for one)

Greg

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when i deleted your post during your tilting in AIW that said Lakisha needed 2 airline tickets because she was so fat?

my, how sensitive.


[/hijack]

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I was just saying "grow a thicker skin." I think you can agree that the mods on this forum are not held to any different standard than anyone else.

BTW i was referring to Joker not you.

Greg

[Angrymoog]

Mostly caught up with reading both threads and I have a hypothesis as to why the player statistics are so similar.

Several times in this thread, nlnut referred to the team strategy as not being against T&C. His focus on FTP T&C suggests an attempt to bend the rules as far as possible, while ultimately remaining within their bounds. We are also fairly certain that nlnut and his team were investigated by FTP and that each account owner provided FTP with DL and utility bills.

While it is possible that one person could have paid off several friends to initially create extra accounts and later to send in their respective information to FTP, it is more likely that at least four friends each operate a single account for an equal share in their combined profits.

Considering this information, I began to envision a system in which four players could achieve statistical uniformity in their tracker stats while still remaining within the T&C of FTP(as current).

First item on the chopping block. How can four players achieve the startling similarities observed in their tracker stats without using bots? It would be impossible for one player, even if he plays a strict system, to so uniformly match statistics over a sample of 100k hands without the aid of a computer. Obviously tilt and fatigue would play the biggest role(and some have pointed out that a bot does not share these concerns), while general emotional status(such as being depressed) might gradually cause the play style to diverge as time passes.

I believe our answer lies in one of the simplest tools available, the odds calculator.

Imagine we want to produce a system of play in which our actions will always be the same. We know that post flop, the number of possible situations would make any robust/detailed post flop rule set virtually astronomical. What is our solution? Ignore all post flop situations when they don't directly impact our hand.

Now we have ruled out virtually all difficult decisions we might be faced with post-flop. Next, we need to consider how to always take the exact same action on a given board. This is where the odds calculator comes in.

For those unfamiliar with how a real time odds calculator works: It takes your hand, the board dealt thus-far, and the number of players who remain in the hand and plays the hand out thousands of times to determine your percent chance to win. It does not take into consideration opponent hand ranges, which is the reason these programs are useless.

What the odds calculator DOES do for us, is provide us with a predictable result. If we took two identical hands and played two identical boards, with an identical number of players, the odds calculator would return the exact same value.

We can use this predictability to create a system of rules we will follow which are directly based on the result our odds calculator return value. For example, when we our flop cbet is raised and the odds calculator does not show 80% chance to win or better, we fold. As long as we have a simple, agreed rule set to follow, it should very simple to produce extremely similar tracker statistics.

Our next consideration would be how to determine our post-flop rule set. I won't go into this because it should be apparent that a marginal winning strategy is feasible using an odds calculator, or possibly a more sophisticated program, as the decision driving mechanism.

There are still a few loose ends, such as the question of whether the players in question ever timed out or made mistakes, but I feel the above hypothesis is plausible given the information available.

Even though players executing a strategy similar to the one I outline would be technically within the bounds of the present FTP rules, clearly the strategy is opposed to the spirit of those rules. Such a strategy might not employ a bot, but it certainly achieves bot-like play.

FTP clearly needs to consider amending its T&C to make these semi-bot strategies against T&C.

El_Moogaldo

[cynic757]

I read through the first 93 pages after seeing a link in ftp's forums and have a few thoughts.

1. If nlnut and his cronies aren't botting then they are [censored] retards for sitting around for hours on end doing something that a bot could do for them.

2. Why the hell do people care whether they're botting or not... because it breaks the rules?? Because you didn't think of it first/or can't pull it off?? Seriously, I don't get it.

Bots that Annoy:
I'll use two gaming examples (nerdy, I know)

Counter-Stike : For obvious reasons. I play the game because it's fun, but when someone is botting you can't really play the game anymore. They pick your head off as soon as you come around a corner.

Diablo 2: A huge part of the game is economy based. We all understand basic economics, higher supply = less demand. Therefore the items that I worked my ass off to find aren't worth as much because some jackass has a bot running 24/7 and he's found 10 of the item I so pathetically prize.

Poker: I dunno. You guys fill me in on this one. They are skimming a small amount at a time off of poor players over a long period of time.... PAYDAY!! For gods sake, if you are "good enough" to play anything higher than .05/.10 NLHE you should rape a bot that plays "by a book".... especially a weak tight book. Or is it that you're afraid these guys will bleed the fish dry?

[bxb]

I think the concern is that bots will improve in the future. Also, it is easy for the bot population to grow since people can sell their bots. Eventually, if the sites don't do something, online poker will become substantially more difficult because you will be playing mainly against very good bots. The fact that a bot now could be skimming a small amount out of the poker economy is fairly inconsequential.

The current situation is very important because
1) We need to see how far along they are in creating good,winning, NL bots.
2) We need to see what the poker sites' response will be if they encounter a possible bot.

On the one hand, it would be pretty bad for FT to punish people who didn't do anything wrong. OTOH, allowing bots is also pretty unacceptable. So FT really needs to have a way to ensure they don't make mistakes. Judging by their statement that they couldn't find conclusive evidence either way, they do not.

[cynic757]

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